Doug Ford promises fully costed platform ‘by the end of this campaign’

PORT COLBORNE, ONT.—Doug Ford said Tuesday that he will give a full account of how a Progressive Conservative government would pay for all of its election promises “by the end of this campaign.”

The PC leader did not provide a specific date, however, with little more than a week remaining until Ontario voters go to the polls.

Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford speaks to residents during a campaign stop at Portal Village Retirement Home in Port Colborne on Tuesday. (Aaron Lynett / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Speaking to a group of seniors at a retirement home in the Niagara Region, Ford listed cost-cutting promises his party has made, including lower gasoline prices, reduced hydro rates and income tax cuts.

Asked by reporters when he’ll release a comprehensive list of those promises with costs attached, he said the PCs have been “rolling out our plan” throughout the campaign.

“Every single day, we have a press conference, we roll out our plan. Every single day we put a cost beside our plan,” Ford said.

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“… We put a price tag beside every single item and each and every one of you (reporters) that follows us around, and every day I hold a press conference and tell you about our great plan.

“But by the end of this campaign, we will have a fully costed platform.”

Ford has come under increasing pressure from his rivals to tell voters how the PCs would pay for their campaign promises.

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But while the Tories are the only party without a fully costed platform, Ford charged that NDP Leader Andrea Horwath “is running on a platform that doesn’t add up.”

“Every dollar they want to spend is coming out of your wallet,” he said, while the PCs will “put money back in your wallet.”

Ford told the seniors that his is the only party they can trust “to create good jobs and keep our economy strong so we can hire more nurses, more doctors, more teachers and protect the services we need.”

The Liberals and NDP have warned that Ford would need to cut tens of thousands of jobs to come up with the $6 billion he has said the province could easily save through “efficiencies,” while the PC leader has insisted that no jobs would be lost.

On Tuesday, the Liberals went a step further, posting a list of Ford’s pledges that they claim would cost taxpayers some $40 billion over the term of a Ford government.

“Given the lack of transparency, the most reliable place to find numbers is through what Doug says in press conferences when pressed by journalists and what has been reported in the media,” the Liberals said in a news release.

It details costs from Ford’s pledges, including the $2 billion annual loss of revenue from cancelling the cap-and-trade program, $1.3 billion annually for a 1 per cent reduction in the corporate tax rate and $1.2 billion a year for cutting gasoline taxes by 10 cents a litre.

Horwath has also been pressuring Ford to release a costed version of his platform, given that advance polls are already open for the June 7 election.